Ask A Scientist Mathematics Archive

Author:      matthew r johnson
I am interested in finding out about the method of exhaustion used by
Archimedes to find the area of a sphere.  We talked a little about this in
my calculus class, but did not have the time to here about this early
version of calculus before it became "discovered."  I would like to know
about the notation used by Archimedes, what he discovered, and where to find
more about this interesting early math history.

Response #:  1 of 1
Author:      tee
A book available in many libraries, I expect, is The Works of Archimedes
with the Method of Archimedes edited by T. L. Heath (Dover Reprint).  Heath
translates the work into modern notation.  This is reasonable since we are
trained to read modern form, much of which did not exist in the time of
Archimedes.  For another source, in which the author claims to produce a
notation for the purpose of bringing us closer to the times of the work, is
"Archimedes", by E. J. Dijksterhuis (Princeton U. Press, 1987, ISBN
0691084211).